Clyde Stubblefield, the ‘Funky Drummer’ for James Brown, Dies at 73

It took only 20 seconds for Clyde Stubblefield to drum his way to immortality. They came near the end of James Brown’s “Funky Drummer,” recorded in a Cincinnati studio in late 1969. Brown counts him in — “1, 2, 3, 4. Hit it!” — and Mr. Stubblefield eases into a cool pattern, part bendy funk and part hard march. It’s calm, slick and precise, and atop it, Brown asks over and over, “Ain’t it funky?”

It was. That brief snippet of percussion excellence became the platonic ideal of a breakbeat, the foundation of hip-hop’s sampling era and a direct through line from the ferocious soul music of the civil rights era to the golden age of history-minded hip-hop of the 1980s and ’90s.

Though Mr. Stubblefield wasn’t enamored of the song — “I didn’t like the song; I still don’t really get off on it,” he told Paste magazine in 2014 — its mark became indelible.

Public Enemy’s “Fight the Power,” LL Cool J’s “Mama Said Knock You Out,” Boogie Down Productions’ “South Bronx,” Sinead O’Connor’s “I Am Stretched on Your Grave,” George Michael’s “Freedom! ’90” and Kenny G’s “G-Bop”: Mr. Stubblefield’s “Funky Drummer” break appeared as a sample in all of those songs, and over a thousand more, from the 1980s to the present day. It made him perhaps the most sampled drummer in history.

He died on Saturday at 73 in Madison, Wis. His manager, Kathie Williams, said the cause was kidney failure.

Mr. Stubblefield was born on April 18, 1943, and grew up in Chattanooga, Tenn., where he was drawn to the rhythms of local industrial sounds, from factories to trains.

“There was a factory there that puffed out air — pop-BOOM, pop-BOOM — hit the mountains and came back as an echo,” he said in an interview in 2015. “And train tracks — click-clack, click-clack. I listened to all that for six years, playing my drums against it.”

By his late teenage years he was already playing drums professionally, and he moved to Macon, Ga., after playing with Otis Redding, who hailed from there. There, he performed with local soul acts and was introduced to Brown by a club owner. Soon he was flying to join Brown on the road and became a permanent band member.

Mr. Stubblefield performed with Brown on and off for about six years, one of two key drummers — the other was John Starks, who was also known as Jabo — playing on the essential James Brown albums of the civil rights era: “Cold Sweat,” “I Got the Feelin’,” “It’s a Mother,” “Say It Loud — I’m Black and I’m Proud” and “Sex Machine.”

He performed at some of Brown’s most important concerts, including at the Boston Garden after the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968 and for United States service members in Vietnam.

His sharp funk provided the anchor on anthems like “Cold Sweat,” “Say It Loud — I’m Black and I’m Proud,” and “I Got The Feelin’.” Always, his playing was complex but collected; his flourishes between beats were as essential as the beat itself. Brown demanded a lot of his band, and Mr. Stubblefield, with playing that had punch, nimbleness and wet texture, never appeared to break a sweat.

“In short, there have been faster, and there have been stronger, but Clyde Stubblefield has a marksman’s left hand unlike any drummer in the 20th century,” Questlove, the drummer and music historian, said in 2011. “The thing that defines him, that sets him apart from other drummers, are his grace notes, which are sort of like the condiments of what spices up the main focus.” He added, “His grace notes, his softest notes, defined a generation.”

Mr. Stubblefield settled in Madison shortly after he left Brown’s band. His brother, who was in the Air Force, was stationed there.

Mr. Stubblefield lived there until his death, becoming a local fixture thanks to a regular Monday nightclub gig that he held through the 1990s and 2000s and his work on the Wisconsin public radio show “Whad’Ya Know?” He was inducted into the Wisconsin Area Music Industry Hall of Fame in 2000. A pair of his drumsticks are in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland.

Though “Funky Drummer” was released as a single, it was never on an album until the 1986 compilation “In the Jungle Groove.” That was in the thick of hip-hop’s sampling era, and it caught on quickly, becoming perhaps the most important drum pattern in hip-hop history.

Brown was a notorious taskmaster as a bandleader, and he retained all the songwriting credit for the work his band did, meaning that as the hip-hop generation discovered Mr. Stubblefield’s playing and used it as a backbone, he saw none of the financial rewards.

“All my life I’ve been wondering about my money,” Mr. Stubblefield, with a chuckle, told The New York Times in 2011. He tried to remedy this by releasing albums of his own — “Revenge of the Funky Drummer” and “The Original Funky Drummer Breakbeat Album.” In 2011, the DVD release of the documentary “Copyright Criminals” featured a collection of new Stubblefield performances designed for easy sampling.

At times, Mr. Stubblefield performed with his old bandmates. He and Mr. Starks formed a duo, Funkmasters, that released music and also recorded instructional videos. At times, Mr. Stubblefield performed with the J.B.’s, a collection of former members of James Brown’s band; they released a 1999 reunion album, “Bring the Funk on Down.” And he reunited with the original J.B.’s rhythm section on the soundtrack for the 2007 comedy film “Superbad.”

Survivors include his longtime companion, Jody Hannon.

The later part of Mr. Stubblefield’s life was marked by bouts of poor health. He had a kidney removed in 2002. In recent years, he suffered from renal disease and underwent dialysis multiple times a week. He also had a thumb amputated after a burn accident in 2014.

In 2000, Mr. Stubblefield received a diagnosis of bladder cancer, which he survived, but he faced daunting medical bills of approximately $90,000.

Last year, after Prince died, Mr. Stubblefield revealed that Prince had paid those bills in full, asking that the gesture be kept private. It was a testament to the force of Mr. Stubblefield’s artistic gift and influence. The two men had never met.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page B4 of the New York edition with the headline: Clyde Stubblefield, the ‘Funky Drummer,’ Dies at 73. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe